THE SURROUNDING GAME follows the lives of three young Americans vying to become the first-ever Western professional Go players. Through an intimate portrait of these young competitors and interviews with the greatest Go masters of all time – including Lee Sedol 9p, Cho Hun-hyun 9p, Nie Weiping 9p, Iyama Yuta 9p, and Go Seigen 9p – the film explores the search for meaning that Go represents to its players, for whom the game is a distillation of consciousness itself.

THE SURROUNDING GAME follows the lives of three young Americans vying to become the first-ever Western professional Go players. Through an intimate portrait of these young competitors and interviews with the greatest Go masters of all time – including Lee Sedol 9p, Cho Hun-hyun 9p, Nie Weiping 9p, Iyama Yuta 9p, and Go Seigen 9p – the film explores the search for meaning that Go represents to its players, for whom the game is a distillation of consciousness itself.